Make your own foaming hand soap

Everything you need to make your own foaming hand soap. Look how much Dr. Bronner's soap we have left after more than a year of use!

I can’t remember the last time I bought hand soap. For years, we have been using a simple combination of Dr. Bronner’s liquid castille soap and water. It’s easy to make, cheap, effective and natural.

To start making your own, I suggest adding 1-2 tbsp. of Dr. Bronner’s soap to an empty foaming hand soap container, filling the rest of it with warm water and shaking the bottle. This works well with most foaming hand soap containers, from 8.5 to 10 ounces. You can buy a foaming soap dispenser, but those run anywhere from $13 to $22 apiece — enough to buy several foaming hand soaps.

If you don’t have any foaming hand soap containers already, one option is Cleanwell All Natural Anti-Bacterial Foaming Hand Soap in orange vanilla. I don’t normally recommend washing with antibacterial soaps as I’m of the belief that bacteria do serve a purpose in building up our immune systems, but the Cleanwell soap scores a “0″ on the Environmental Working Group’s Cosmetics Database (that’s the best score you can get on the database’s 0-10 scale).

When you’re ready to add your own soap, I recommend Dr. Bronner’s liquid castille soaps. I purchased a gallon of the Baby Mild from Amazon more than a year ago and we’re still only about ¼ of the way through it. This fair-trade soap contains organic coconut, olive and hemp oils and scores a “1″ on the Cosmetics Database. Other Dr. Bronner soaps that score a “1″ include: Almond, Eucalyptus, Peppermint, Tea Tree, Lavender, Citrus Orange and Rose. Once again, I’d recommend steering clear of the tea tree oil and lavender formulations because of estrogen concerns.

And what is all this saving me? Well, based on the current Amazon.com pricing, I’m paying 20-40 cents for each bottle of hand soap I’m making, depending on whether I use 1 or 2 tbsp. of Dr. Bronner’s soap. That’s a pretty significant savings over buying a natural foaming hand soap in the store, where they typically run for $3-$5 apiece in my area.